


so sick and tired of being alone

by clickingkeyboards



Series: Love’s Labour’s Lost [1]
Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Memories, Past Relationship(s), Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23631808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards
Summary: Visitation opens up at HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs, and Alfred Cheng, Harold Mukherjee, and Amanda Price are forced to race Bertie Wells to London before he forgives a murderer that broke his heart.(title from Lonely by Palaye Royale - also chapter titles from various songs of theirs)
Relationships: Harold Mukherjee/Bertie Wells
Series: Love’s Labour’s Lost [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1736263
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	1. so long, farewell, i'm on my own

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WritesEveryBlueMoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritesEveryBlueMoon/gifts), [Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Give_Me_A_Karking_KitKat/gifts).



**Chapter 1 — so long, farewell, i'm on my own**

**_In which they realise that Bertie is gone._ **

“Cheng!” Harold called out, rushing towards the young man strolling over the bridge with a swagger in his step. “Have you seen Bertie today?”

Rushing the last few steps, he ran over the bridge and near-shouted, “I was about to come and ask you where he is! You really have no idea?”

“Not a clue. He said that he’d meet in the Tea Rooms for breakfast — stop smirking — but he didn’t turn up so I came looking.” Adjusting his cuffs, he looked at Alfred with eyes filled with concern and tapped his foot against the dewy grass.

The two of them stared at each other in confusion for a moment, and then Harold’s face lit up with comprehension. “I lived with an aspiring detective for _fourteen_ years, I think I can conduct a reasonably competent investigation into something that doesn’t involve murder.”

“The Case of ‘Where The Fuck Is Bertie Wells?’,” Alfred suggested with a wry smile. “Has a nice ring to it.”

“I’m going to _wring_ your neck,” he threatened, though there was no bite behind it.

Alfred nudged him playfully, one eyebrow arched. “Don’t kill your partner-in-crime.”

With that sentiment, they started off to Mauldin together.

* * *

“Why are you going into Mr Wells’ rooms?” Moss asked, and there was a nervousness in his tone indicative of how every person at Cambridge sounded when they saw two people of colour getting up to perceived no good.

“He told us to retrieve some stuff from his room,” Alfred lied seamlessly, raising a piece of paper that had been in his pocket and looked decently like a written list. “Good day to you, Moss.”

The two of them slipped into his rooms and Harold shut the door behind them. “That was clever.”

“Cheers, it’s a note from Amanda about climbing from a few weeks ago.”

Harold checked his cuffs, toying with the cufflinks that had been a gift from his brother as he said, “Right, investigation.”

“You and Bertie have strange siblings,” he said, leaning back against the door. “How do we do this, then?”

“Look for what the room is missing.” With a confidence reminiscent of his brother, he called up what he knew the rooms to look like, and then picked out the differences. “His hat’s gone, his coat, _two_ pairs of shoes, his good tie — you know, the navy one he got as a graduation present that has his family’s house stitched onto it in gold?”

“I know the one. Damn tasteless gift. His mother had it made special, didn’t she?” Alfred took his lead and stepped further into the room. He didn’t know the room as well as Harold, a frequent visitor (he pretended not to know why), but Bertie hosted a lot of champagne-filled evenings and the patterns of the room were familiar to him. Messy environments were something Alfred was drawn to, especially as he came from a family with a wedding-cake white house in Hong Kong, where everything had a place and was treated with care. The first neat and tidy person that he had met in England was Harold Mukherjee, and even his belongings suffered well-loved wear-and-tear. “Uh… see here, there’s usually a notebook there, on the coffee table. The blue leather one that buttons shut, and has a strap to pull around it?”

“He picks at the red ribbon when he doesn’t know what to do with his hands,” he agreed, nodding approvingly at Alfred. “I’ll check in his bedroom, can you look in the office corner?”

“Don’t want to see whatever Wells might be hiding in his bedroom, I’ll take your word for whatever you find.” With a mischievous smile, Alfred ducked into the office corner and ignored Harold’s rude and blunt gesture in his direction.

The desk was a bit more annoying, as nobody studied what he had on his desk while they were drinking champagne and playing darts, the remnants of which were clear to see on a pockmarked wall. However, it was what _was_ there that Alfred took notice. A letter, sent by post only a week ago, postmarked from London, HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs.

_To whom it may concern,_

_This letter has been sent to any and all relatives and close contacts of Mr. Bampton, who is being held at HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs on a twenty-year sentence open for appeal and parole. A year has passed since the crime was committed, and ten months since his conviction. Due to ‘good behaviour’ being reported, Mr. Bampton is now open for visitation starting 3rd of April, 1936._

_Yours,_

Beneath it, there was an incomprehensible signature signed in black pen, bleeding out across the paper in small spikes and jolts.

“Harold!”

“Alfred!”

“What have you found?” he asked, straightening up with the letter in his hand.

From the bedroom, Harold called out, “His suitcase is gone! Wherever he’s gone, he’s gone fast and he’s planning to stay there. Just as we were going to spend all the Easter holidays together here, too!”

“He’s gone to London.”

“You found ticket stubs?”

Shaking his head, though Harold couldn’t see, he replied, “A letter.”

“Hardly incriminating, the most astonishing letters he has are from me.” Pushing a box back under the bed, he stood up and walked to the door, swinging himself around the doorframe. “Where’s it postmarked from?”

“The Scrubs. You know, the London prison that you hear horror stories bout?”

With a cold and harsh stab through his heart, Harold realised the seriousness of the situation. “He’s gone to see Bampton, hasn’t he?” The idea made him feel sick to his stomach, the idea of Bertie standing face-to-face with the murderer who shattered him to pieces, leaving Harold to help him collect up the shards of his life and hold them back together until he could allow himself to set back into the shape of who he wanted to be.

Alfred barely nodded before he had tucked the letter into the pocket of his coat and straightened up. “Go and pack a bag, two days of outfits at least, and I’ll call the train station to see about tickets. Can you afford first-class tickets?”

“I’ll fork the money if you book the tickets,” Harold said, halfway out the door and placing his hat back on his head, a diary from Bertie’s bedside table clutched in one hand. “Wait, hang on.”

“Yeah?”

“Book three tickets.”

“Why?” he asked, walking out of the room and to the telephone beside the door. “Who else?”

Fumbling to tuck the book into his pocket, he said, “I’m getting Amanda from St. Lucy’s. Something like this… it’ll take all three of us.”

“Got you.” A wry smile came onto his face again. “A girl, an Indian, and a Chinese, we’ll make quite the party.”

Bampton was going to kill Bertie without touching him, purely by driving him to the insanity by being so purely _human_ that Bertie would be forced to forgive him.

Believing in the goodness in everyone was the best quality Bertie had, but it was almost a fatal flaw.


	2. getting concerned about my lonely friend

**Chapter 2 — getting concerned about my lonely friend**

**_In which Bertie arrives in London and reaches the prison._ **

“Next stop: Waterloo.”

Bertie shifted his grip on his satchel, slung over one shoulder with the modicum of care that he could afford to his belongings. A burning frustration had built up at every minor inconvenience in the hour-long journey, emotions so enormous that the train car felt restrictive to exist in. 

The elderly man beside him didn’t stir, and so he tapped his shoulder and said, “Excuse me, sir, this is the last stop on the line.”

With a grumble, the man blinked himself away and said, “Thank you, young man.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

Then came the scrutiny, the recognition, and the immeasurable pity. Whereas people may have stared in the past (because he was a Wells, because he was handsome, because he looked furious), it didn’t come close to the enormous sorrow-filled eyes that followed him every second of every day.

_“That’s the boy from Fallingford.”_

The only people that would ever stare without those intentions now were his three closest friends: Amanda, contemplating exactly how to stare a fierce debate, Alfred, mentally nitpicking at his appearance before announcing a flaw, and Harold, sneaking up behind him and whispering, “Hey, handsome.”

“You’re the boy from the Fallingford scandal.”

“Much appreciated, sir,” he said through gritted teeth as they stood, ripping his suitcase down from the overhead rack as aggressively as possible.

When he burst out into the brightness of Waterloo station, his eyes almost burnt. Looking down at the ink staining the back of his hand, marking the address of the prison, he walked over to a tube map and attempted to make sense of the coloured markings, coming up at a loss each time.

Eventually, he admitted defeat and turned to a uniformed worker standing sentry in a smart jacket. “‘scuse me, sir, but do you happen to know what tube I would have to take to get to HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs?”

His accent, obscenely upper-class, cut through the bustle of working life and made the worker in question start. “Pardon, sir, what was that?”

“Could you please tell me how to get to HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs?”

The man only looked slightly surprised as he said, “Of course! Take the Jubilee Line — Westbound — for three stops to Bond Street, here.” His finger jabbed at the pinned-up map at the stops, as if that made a whit of difference to Bertie’s understanding. “Then transfer to the Central Line — Westbound again — and go eight stops to East Acton. Go out of the station and left, then right onto Henchman, right again onto Wulfstan, and then left onto Du Cane Road. Walk should take you ten minutes or thereabouts.”

With a sigh of relief, Bertie said, “Thank you so much, man.”

“Hey. You’re the Wells boy, aren’t you?”

“What of it?” he snapped, instantly guarding against the recognition and forgetting sent gratitude that he had felt. “We’re on the brink of a war, you’ve better things to worry about.”

“Isn’t the Bampton boy being held at the Scrubs?” There was a wrinkle of recognition on the man’s brow, and Bertie knew the type when he saw it, the type to run to the papers and spout a story that would be all over England by that afternoon.

Scrabbling in his pocket, Bertie pulled out a ten-pound note and a handful of coins, tipping the handsome amount into the man’s hands. “That’s to forget that you ever saw me, alright? Got a business card?”

With a shaking hand, the man handed over a small white card, dirted from disuse and sitting in his pocket in a less-than-pristine station for hours a day. “Cheers, sir. What I’m doing here today is none of your business,” he snapped in a way that he regarded as remarkably like his sister, taking off across the station. 

* * *

Slouched in a seat on the tube, he wondered what on earth he was doing. Coming to London a whim, all with the vague hope that seeing Stephen Bampton again would make it all right again. How could it? They weren’t to reunite as old, to hold hands through the bars of a cell and kiss with their hands grappling with cold metal and each other’s clothes, cheeks pressed against cool iron that smelt of incarceration. They weren’t to fall into an easy push and pull of chasing each other and play-wrestling because they were sure that neither would ever harm anyone, laughing as schoolboys with all the time in the world. They weren’t to understand each other ever again, doomed to never see eye-to-eye on a level except physical. 

In Bertie’s memories, Stephen was sunkissed. He was brightly-darned mufti and freckles coming out in the sun, russet curls far too long for a schoolboy's style. There was a reverence to those memories that he was desperate not to poison, unwilling to taint his entire youth with the bitter tang of arsenic. That gave the idea a blissful want, a pull to the notion of falling back into their old ways, desperate schoolboys high off life and firsts and smuggled alcohol, beer bottles stashed in the bottom of tuck boxes under rude editions of _The Arabian Nights_ and cakes half-squashed and waiting to be eaten while climbing on the roofs of the school, dropping crumbs all over the mossy tiles. They had been running off borrowed time in shady corners of Eton, breaths kept quiet as hands pulled at shirts and belt buckles and found each other in the dark.

They hadn’t just been lovers but best friends, teenagers who stole confiscated items and forged signatures on forms and scratched graffiti into desks. Together, they started plenty of rumours about the more nasty students at Eton, spent Exeat afternoons pilfering sweet shops of all their stock by spending all their pocket money in one turn before rushing to catch a film that they had so cleverly timed. There was a fondness clouding memories that ached, a very different Bertie Wells kissing a murderer who was so distorted that it felt like peering through the Looking Glass.

One particular memory was high above all others in his mind, a cruel twist of poisoned past and present, the one moment his worlds had touched without him knowing.

_A rugby match against Weston, him and Stephen guarding the goal against the opposition’s proudest attacker, a tall and rakishly handsome Indian boy who was snubbed and sneered at while also cheered in the oddest mix of support and distaste that Bertie had ever seen._

_“GO MUKHERJEE!” someone yelled, and the Indian boy made a bolt for the goal, veering sharply to the right of Bertie and towards Stephen, shivering and cold and so desperately wanting to be anywhere else. A surefire target, easy to slip past. When Bertie winked at Stephen, he gulped and steadied himself before launching himself at the Indian boy. They went down in a tangle of limbs and swearing, allowing Bertie to rush over and snatch the ball, bolting down the pitch and making a pass to Davids Minor._

_At the end of the match, Stephen made his way over to the Indian boy — Mukherjee — nursing a bruise from Stephen’s boots while being a jolly good sport about Weston’s loss._

_“Sorry about that.”_

_“Quite alright. Should’ve expected that, really.” He rolled his eyes and shifted in his chair, wincing only slightly. “No need to apologise, though.”_

_“Right. I mean, what is the sport for?” Stephen replied awkwardly._

_“Exactly. Plus, I wouldn’t worry about doing anyone serious long-term damage. You’re a head shorter than me and absolutely weedy. You couldn’t kill someone if you tried.”_

_Rolling his eyes at the Indian boy’s cynical sense of humour, he joked back, “Not so fast, Weston boy. I mean, there’s always arsenic!”_

* * *

Bertie squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed a hand down his face. _God._

“Are you quite alright, mister?” asked a little girl beside him, kicking her legs against the deaf and staring up at him with round eyes. She reminded him awfully of Hazel Wong, his sister’s best friend: small, Chinese, innocently round-faced, and overly kind with a hint of bravery (by talking to a scary, unknown adult).

“Perfectly okay, little miss,” he found himself replying. “Just got something in my eye.”

She reached over and patted his knee. “Okay, mister. Do you want a lolly?”

The girl’s mother finally noticed, snatching her hand away with a gasp of a Chinese name. “Zhi Ruo!” she scolded. “No talking to strangers!”

“The man looks sad, Mummy! May I give him a lolly?” she asked, turning innocent eyes up at her mother, who sighed and softened and said, “Go on, sweetie.”

Bertie chuckled when a green lollipop clutched in a tiny fist was thrust in his face, the girl looking up at him with expectant eyes. “Thank you, little miss.”

“Next stop, East Acton.”

* * *

Bertie had called ahead that morning, told them to expect a visitor. After being profusely frisked by the security, he was led inside and down rows and rows of cells, no bars or locks or dilapidated conditions open to the world. With a shock, he realised how different his world was from Stephen’s own. This was Stephen’s _home_ now, whereas Bertie’s only understanding of a prison came from cartoon strips ripped straight from the nineteenth-century.

He had read those comics with Stephen. 

What a shock prison must have been, when compared to that comically exaggerated vision that they saw as boys.

Stephen was still a boy when he was locked up.

He always forgot that.

The room that he was escorted to was one with two tables in the centre, separated by a glass divider. A circle was cut in the glass over the table, creating a hole for hands to be held through, and there were holes pockmarked at head height to allow speech to travel through.

However, Bertie barely spared any of that a second glance, because there was a man sitting on the opposite side of the glass. A _man_ , not a boy, with a scruffy ginger beard and a hunch in his posture, head bowed low to the table.

_Oh lord._

For all the thinking that he had done since he received the letter, he hadn’t thought about what to say.

“Bampton, the visitor for you.”

He raised his head lazily, brushing a hand through ginger curls and letting out a gasp when he saw Bertie.

“Bertie…”

“Hello, Stephen.”


	3. you’d better leave or hang on (hang on to yourself)

**Chapter 3 — you’d better leave or hang on (hang on to yourself)**

**_In which they board the train and talk over the situation._ **

“Any particular reason why I’m being asked to pack a two-day bag, Mukherjee?” Amanda asked, looking up from an essay and brushing a hand back through her loose dark hair. It didn’t occur to her that a boy was seeing her without her hair done up; it wasn’t like Mukherjee had eyes for women anyway, so she didn’t particularly care.

“We’re going on a hunt for Bertie Wells.”

_ Now  _ she was listening. “What? Why? Where’s he gone? He hasn’t done something stupid, has he?”

Frank as ever, Harold dramatically flourished a letter from his pocket, holding it out for her to take and saying, “You tell me.”

She reached out and took the letter, unfolding it with her ink-stained hands and laying it out over the top of her essay. “Oh.  _ Oh _ , I say.”

“Exactly. We woke up this morning and he’s… he’s  _ gone _ . Packed a two-day bag and left for London.” He took the letter back, tucking it back into his coat and frowning, the action cutting a slash between his brows. “Coming?”

“Of course. God knows how men get by without a woman by their side,” she said, rolling her eyes and standing up. “I can be packed up and ready in twenty.”

“Can I be of assistance?”

Shooting him a deadpan look, she replied, “Unless you fancy folding a girl’s underthings, not really.”

Unlike how almost every other man in Cambridge would have reacted, Harold turned as pale as he could and blanched. “Ah… I’m good.”

Laughter on her lips, Amanda reached up for a suitcase on top of her bookcase and said, “Actually, now that you mention it… pin my hair for me and I’ll be done in fifteen.”

* * *

Alfred Cheng flourished a piece of notepaper outside St. Lucys, ignoring the porter glaring daggers at him. “Three first-class tickets, I have to hand this in at the booking office and we have passage to London.”

“Wonderful,” Amanda said, hefting her beaten case and pulling her hat down further over her hair. Despite being mid-April, Cambridge was still strikingly cold with bursts of warmth that never seemed to fall on convenient weekends. “When does the train leave?”

Checking his wristwatch, he said, “Uh… well, it’s a thirty-minute walk to Cambridge Station, and it’s twenty-five to nine right now. It leaves at quarter-past, so we have ten minutes to spare.”

“Ten minutes to get the tickets,” Amanda said in terse tones. “How about the journey?”

“An hour or so, and then more than half an hour to the prison,” he replied, consulting his slip of paper that he had scribbled on while on the phone.

Worrying her hand over the worn leather handle of her case, she looked up at Alfred, drawn and sharp-featured and flushed with the effort of persuading someone to bump two first-class passengers down to second-class in order to ensure them a private place to discuss. “When did he leave? How far ahead is he?”

“I asked. I noticed that he was missing at… oh, let’s say ten-to-eight. They said that another train left an hour before ours does. Presumably, he took off at about twenty-to, if he wanted to get to the station on time and buy a ticket.”

“So he’s an hour ahead,” Amanda said, realising with a jolt that they were going to have left Bertie alone with a killer for an  _ hour _ .

Folding up the piece of paper and slipping it into his pocket, he says, “We can cut fifteen minutes off of that if we hail a cab and pay the driver to speed and not ask questions.”

“God, you can tell that you’re from the upper-classes.” She raised an eyebrow at him challengingly, and he raised one back in silent competition.

“And what of it? Helpful, isn’t it?”

Turning her attention away from Alfred with a roll of her eyes, she looked to Harold. He had a white-knuckle grip on the handle of his suitcase. “You look stressed.”

Glancing left and right to ensure a clear street, he spoke in hushed tones to her alone, “My boyfriend is currently an hour away from me talking to his ex-boyfriend who is a  _ convicted murderer _ . You’re a Cambridge student, Amanda, surely you can work out that I am indeed  _ very stressed _ .”

“You’ve got a point.”

“I’ve several, and I’m not voicing them. Hurry up.”

* * *

There was a compartment closed-off and free in first class, prompting Alfred to say, “Well, one thing is going right for us today,” and stash his bag on the overhead rack. “Right, let’s go over this.”

“What do you mean?” Harold asked, sitting down on the opposite side of the table from his friends and leaning his head against the window.

“I barely know anything about Fallingford,” Alfred said, brushing his hair back with a hand raked through it. “I know… I know that there was a murder in his house, and I know that he knew the killer. I saw the rumours about the murdered and the whispers of a scandal, but that’s  _ all _ I know. Why is him going to see Bampton such an… enormous deal? I know it’s a big deal, but you’re… there’s something about how you phrase it that makes it seem a hundred times worse than it already is.”

Sharing a look with Harold, who looked impossibly drawn and worried, Amanda lowered her voice and said, “You know how… how him and Harold are?”

With a raised eyebrow, he said, “Unconventional, yes?”

‘Unconventional’ was how he had referred to the relationship after finding out, and it had stuck as an inside joke among those that knew.

“Unconventional is the word, yes. Well, that was how he and Bampton — you know, the killer — were.” Putting a hand into her pocket, she pulled out a notepad and a pencil, which had scribbled snail-trails across the front page from being jostled together in her pocket. “He was in love, and the man —  _ boy _ — that he was in love with  _ killed someone _ .”

“Who did he kill? I seem to remember a Mr… Curtly?”

“Curtis,” Harold said, blinking himself back into the waking world to pitch into the story. “Denis Curtis, a fraudulent antiques collector. He would… he would befriend women, go to their houses, look at their very expensive things, tell them that they’re worth nothing, and then take lot, leaving the family near-bankrupt. He tried to rip off the Wells family.”

“You mean to say that he  _ befriended _ Bertie’s mother?” Alfred asked, eyebrows raised as he understood that he was treading on dangerous ground.

“ _ Befriended _ is one to put it,” Amanda said, her mouth drawn into a line as she bit at her lips, deep in thought. “Bertie and… well, and the murderer, they walked in on Curtis and Lady Hastings  _ kissing  _ in the Fallingford library.”

Giving up on feigning a lack of shock, Alfred allowed his jaw to drop as he stared at the two of them. “ _ Oh _ . So… why did Bampton kill Curtis?”

“Curtis ripped on the Bampton family when the murderer — Stephen — was only little,” Amanda said, keeping her voice soft as she explained the entire dreadful tale, one that Bertie had explained on a chilly November evening with his hands shaking and tears rolling down his face. “His mother took up with Curtis, and just  _ let _ the man bankrupt the entire family. Then Bampton’s father killed himself. Then Curtis turned up at Fallingford  _ years _ later, ready to rip off the Wells family  _ and _ flashing around a golden pocket watch that he had filched from Stephen’s father. He didn’t recognise Stephen, because he was barely ten when his life fell apart. But  _ Stephen _ recognised  _ him _ . He poisoned Curtis’ tea with arsenic, and was suspected by someone in the house, I think Daisy’s… governess? She asked him about it, and he panicked and sought her out later and shoved her down the stairs. Except it was dark and he only saw the back of her, and actually ended up shoving  _ Lady Hastings _ down the stairs.”

“Sounds like she deserved it, quite frankly,” Alfred muttered, still paying rapt attention.

Muffling a laugh in her hand, Amanda scolded, “ _ Cheng _ . But… yes. Stephen then spent three days comforting Bertie, carrying on with him, reassuring him that he would ‘never let the murderer hurt them’.”

He let out an impressed whistle, and Harold sighed out a weary, “ _ Right _ .”

“I now see why it is such a terrible idea to put those two near each other and let them have a face-to-face conversation,” Alfred said, leaning back against the plush leather with a look of eyes blown wide. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Not a problem.” Tapping her notepad with her pencil, she said, “Hangman?”

They all winced at the choice of the words, but then Harold said, “Sure.”

The silence was only disturbed by the scratching of the pencil as Amanda drew out six spaces. “A,” Alfred said.

Amanda marked an A into the first space. “Harold?”

“E? I’ll follow the pattern.”

“A, blank, blank, E, blank, blank,” Amanda said, tapping her pencil. “Your clue is ‘Bertie’.”

Snorting, Alfred said, “How is that a  _ clue _ ?”

“I?” Harold asked, frowning at the combination of letters and blanks.

“Nope,” Amanda said, popping the ‘p’ and drawing the beginning of the hanging rig. “Try again.”

Already fed up of a game that had been going on for less than two minutes, he drummed his fingers on the table and said, “O.”

“Try harder, boys,” she teased, raising an eyebrow in challenge.

After a pause, Harold snapped his fingers. “Albert. His full name.”

“Didn’t expect you to get it that fast!” she said, sighing in a good-natured way as she filled in the rest of the letters. “You impress me.”

Leaning his head against the window, he looked out at the countryside flying past and said, “Who doesn’t know their boyfriend that well?”


	4. i fell in love with my best friend

**Chapter 4 — i fell in love with my best friend**

**_In which Bertie talks to Stephen._ **

“Sit down, Wells. You have until we say that time is up.”

Keeping his eyes on Stephen’s face, Bertie made his way to the available seat and sat down. “Hello, Stephen.”

“Bertie. You’ve not changed a bit,” he said, raising his head to look him in the eyes through the glass. His russet curls were shorter than they had been at the trial, and there was a scruffy ginger beard rough on his chin. Underneath it was the face of a boy, placid and converted to a new life behind bars, with fear wild in brown eyes. 

“Wish I could say the same for you.”

“I got that haircut you suggested.”

As he spoke, his lips moved, bowing around a pockmarked series of dotted scars like freckles, still clotted with blood with rings of redness around them. “You’ve… you’ve marks, scars, on your lips.”

“Sewed them together,” he said in blunt tones, still wrought with the anxiety that he would have kissed away, once upon a time. 

“What for?” Bertie was horrified. Even though Stephen had always been quiet, he was never silent. He was sarcastic and witty in hushed tones, innuendos and clever remarks whispered into Bertie’s ear, even if he had to stand on tip-toe to do so. 

“Protest.”

“Because that’s sane,” he replied wryly, disbelieving that this boy in front of him was the same oddly handsome and awkward teenager that he had fallen into bed with so long ago.

“I’m not a sane man, Bertie.”

“You were sane once,” he mumbled, resting his head in his hands and feeling his entire body give with the admission. There was no use pretending that there hadn’t been good there  _ once _ , or he wouldn’t have ever fallen. “You were sane once, Stephen. Good god, you were more than sane, you were  _ good _ . You weren’t a devout fucking Catholic or anything, but no man like us is one anymore. The point is that you were good. You laughed and you teased and you smiled, you felt human emotions and you made my sister laugh, and you promised Hazel that we  _ wouldn’t let anything happen to her _ . Before you did the most wicked thing that a man can do, you were good, and that’s that hurts. You were good and I trusted you, and you and I had every first  _ together _ . Every day, for  _ years _ , there was a new first between us. First best friend, first kiss, first time, and first fucking  _ broken heart _ .”

A pause hung in the air between them, seemingly electrically dancing on the class between them as tension cast an unmistakably bitter tang over Bertie’s tongue, chasing the words out of his mouth and into the air where he couldn’t take them back. 

“I didn’t mean to break your heart.”

“You made a mistake, then. One I’m not forgiving you for.”

“Is there another?” Stephen asked suddenly, and the look on his face was so close to innocent curiosity that it made him want to retch.

“Yes. Yes, there is. He… his name is Harold Mukherjee.” And, like a sudden wave, came the urge to talk. To tell Stephen what he had, that he was happy, that there was someone in his life who could kiss and touch and  _ know  _ his mind and body so completely. He wanted to explain, to force him to understand, to show that he had not lost the ability to love when Stephen broke his heart. Someone had cared enough to pick up the shattered pieces of his life and hold them back together in a new shape, and that was the most important thing that Stephen ought to know above all else. He had to know that he had not managed to destroy Bertie’s everything, and Bertie would face the gallows if it meant being able to tell the world that without judgment.

“He’s Indian, rakishly handsome, shorter than me but slender and very strong. There’s calluses on his palms from climbing, and another on his ring finger from the amount he writes. When I was dreadfully ill with the flu in January, he read a children’s book to me at my bedside despite the fact that he ought to have been studying. He knows ludicrous amounts about history, reads nearly endlessly, could give anyone a run for their money at chess. He’s kind, always concerned for me, skilled in his area. He’s got the most bewitching smile; just looking at him calms me down. Our first kiss was on top of a building, with a length of rope from a climb pressed between our palms. It was on Bonfire Night. A kiss with fireworks. He’s… he’s romantic, and he’s warm, and he’s ten times the man you’ll ever be.”

Stephen swallowed thickly, and Bertie looked up to see tears shining in his eyes, catching in the criminally low light. “He sounds wonderful.”

“He is. I think I love him.”

“And so you should. You deserve that, Bertie. I’m sorry that I couldn’t give it to you.”

“You say that as if the murder was out of your control. It wasn’t. You weren’t possessed, Stephen. Very much in your right mind, thoughts of school prep and English lessons and grossly boiled cabbages and  _ me _ taking up the same spaces in your mind as the arsenic that you slipped into a torn book page. You tipped it into his tea and, with your next breath, whispered in my ear and kissed my jaw when nobody was looking.” As he spoke, his voice cracked and broke, pitching here and there as he gasped out words. One hand reached up to his jaw, fingers pressing against his jaw just where both Stephen and Harold liked to press kisses. “All of those actions were  _ you _ , not some mysterious force possessing you to do the most awful things.  _ You  _ were wicked, and  _ you  _ were evil, and the things you did are not fucking fair.”

“I’m sorry about the courthouse. The third day of the trial.”

“I leant in, Stephen.”

“I let you.”

_ According to the court, he wasn’t enough of a threat to waste cuffs on. Between testimonies and lawyers and bargaining, anything from ‘five years’ to ‘the gallows’ being bandied about the courtroom, he was in a small room flanked by two smoking guards who didn’t pay him a whit of attention. _

_ Slipping away was ludicrously easy. He sidled out of the ajar door and looked down the long corridor that stretched along the back of the courthouse, and then he ran. He didn’t know where to, just that he wanted to feel the ground under his feet and the burning of his muscles and to scream and beat in the walls, set the courthouse alight because hell, he was a madman now and he’ll take the label and cherish it and make it painfully true. _

_ And then he slammed into a slender young man stepping out of the Gents.  _

_ “Motherfucker!” Bertie Wells yelled, getting to his feet and reaching out to help Stephen up, hauling him to his feet before realising. _

_ In a long, aching stare, they held each other’s gazes. During Bertie’s first statement, he hadn’t looked Stephen in the eye, hadn’t dared to, and he saw why the moment they locked eyes again. Just the sight of brightly brown eyes, a small scar under his left eyebrow and a circular scar from chickenpox, made him want to burst out that it wasn’t fair, that Stephen couldn’t kill, wasn’t  _ allowed  _ to have killed simply because it was not fair on him, on his sister, on his entire damn family and relationships and reputation and his heart. _

_ “I want to run.” _

_ “You can’t,” he said in a shaking tone, feeling very much like his sister dealing justice to a murderer. In that one moment, brave. “You can’t run anymore, not from me.” _

_ “You’re a better man than I am.” _

_ “Proudly.” _

_ Their eyes locked again, a stare heavy with a promise and a lack of closure, and then Bertie leant in. Stephen let him, took it, brought a hand up to cradle his head and pressed another to his chest, over his heart and feeling the wrinkles of his shirt under his palm.  _

_ “We’re done,” Bertie spat when they drew apart, the look on his face as pained as that of Mr. Curtis the moment that he died. _

_ “We’re done.” _

_ When Bertie walked back to his family, Uncle Felix turned to him and raised an eyebrow. No one else even noticed his absence. Fitting. No wonder they had let a murderer almost slip away under their noses, when they couldn’t even catch it when he vanished.  _

_ “Where did you go?” Felix asked him sharply. _

_ Bertie touched his lips faintly and shrugged, words weighing heavy on his tongue as he lied. “Just on a walk.” _

Voice thick with regret, Bertie mumbled, “That’s one mistake I’ll admit to.”


	5. there’s a little story i’d like to tell

**Chapter 5 — there’s a little story i’d like to tell**

**_In which Daisy is called_ **

“Sometimes I forget how busy London is,” Harold said, pulling his hat down further over his face and starting purposefully towards the exit of Waterloo. “Then I remember and I’m bloody glad I left.”

Sharing uncertain looks, Amanda and Alfred hurried after him.

“Do you know the way?” Amanda asked.

He shrugged. “I know how to get to East Acton. I could go to see my folks while I’m at it, we don’t live too far from here.” In response to Alfred’s judgmentally raised eyebrow, he said, “I’m joking!”

“Figured you were,” he said, shooting a glare at a group of teenage girls looking at him askance. “Taxi rank’s that way, according to that sign.”

“I’m not going to a taxi rank,” he said, tipping his hat at a man letting them past as they stepped into the watery half-sun. “There’s no way that I’m going to that prison without advice from someone who was at Fallingford.”

“Who are you calling?” Amanda asked, quickening her pace as Harold made a beeline for a telephone box.

One hand on the door, he said, “Daisy Wells. Could you two guard the door for me? I had the windows shattered in on me once when I was in one of these.”

“You _what_?” she blurted, staring at him wide-eyed as he stepped inside.

“It happens!” he called back, dialling the operator and asking for the flat that he knew Daisy’s uncle lived in.

“Felix Mountfitchet speaking,” said a voice on the other end, surprisingly clear for a London telephone box.

“Hello, sir,” he began, voice shaking only slightly. “I’m Harold Mukherjee, Bertie’s friend. May I speak to Daisy Wells?”

There was a pause and then he said, “Good god, whatever for?”

“Um… I’m putting together a surprise, for Bertie. I thought I might get help from, as he puts it, his horror of a sister.”

“And what on earth are you doing calling from a London telephone box?”

Harold sucked in a breath. The operator must have announced his location to Felix before putting him on. “Uh… in London, with two friends. We were heading off to buy something, for the surprise, when Alfred voiced doubts. I thought Daisy might settle it.”

He had met Felix Mountfitchet once before, at Christmas. It felt like the man was staring into his soul. Every question about Bertie had been asked with a snap, and each well-rehearsed answer stuck in his throat. “You do know what my niece has been through, don’t you?”

“Bertie told me. A murder, Hazel’s maid. A kidnapping too. I sent you a letter when I heard, giving condolences. Trouble really does follow the Wells family around,” he managed, once again feeling the weary fear of slipping up bearing down, as heavy as a hand on his shoulder. He swallowed thickly, nervous as his hand shifted on the receiver. “Daisy seems to enjoy a good mystery, even if that’s only helping me work out a surprise.”

“I’ll get her for you,” he said, and Harold stifled an audible sigh of relief. “By the way, I approve.”

“Pardon?” he asked, voice pitching dangerously as he reached up to support the receiver with his other hand. “Sir?”

“I approve, Mukherjee. Of you.”

“Of… me, sir?” He had never asked too many questions. Asking too many questions in London was never good, as London men just nodded and moved on. Especially asking questions to an officer of the law, which had once got him shot at.

“Daisy! A man, on the phone for you!” he called out on playful tones before turning serious, back to the call. “Of you and my nephew.”

“ _Oh._ ”

Footsteps pattered on the other end of the line, and Daisy Wells cried out, “If it is Alexander Arcady _daring_ to ask me on a date, I shall give him what for! I am an independent woman and will not stand for a date with a ghastly _American_.”

“DAISY!” yelped the voice of Hazel Wong. “I thought you wanted to marry a lord?”

“You and I _both_ know that’s utter tosh, Watson,” she snapped before taking the receiver. “Hello? The Honourable Daisy Wells speaking.”

“I’m going to pretend that I didn’t hear you say that about my brother’s best friend,” he replied in wry tones, his white-knuckled grip on the receiver relaxing.

“Harold Mukherjee! To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asked, clearly astonished to hear his voice.

“Your uncle is a terrifying man.” Finally mustering up the courage, he said, “As far as your Uncle Felix is aware, I’m preparing a surprise for your brother.”

Instantly lowering her voice into conspiratory tones, she asked, “What’s really going on?”

“They’ve opened up visitation for Stephen Bampton, and Bertie was missing this morning. We found the letter on his desk, and enough stuff is missing from his room to assume that he’s packed a two-day bag and buggered off to London,” he replied, words clipped as he tried to speak as fast as possible.

“You’re in London?”

“HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs.”

“I was going to ask why you didn’t call me before but then I realised,” she said, and Harold could picture her glancing furtively to see if a listening adult was lurking anywhere near. “You’re the only one who will be able to calm him down in this situation. The only person on the _planet_ , Harold.”

“I thought you’d be furious. I truly didn’t think to call you before now,” he admitted, fiddling with the diary in his pocket with one hand. “I need your advice. What ought I to say?”

Daisy sighed, and the sound rattled down the phone. “You, Harold Mukherjee, are an idiot. You ought to just be yourself! Lord knows why but you like my brother and he likes you. A true mystery to me. Really, just speaking to him will calm him down. You ought to go about talking some sense into him, and pulling him away from Stephen. You need to reassure him that the fact that he loved Stephen does not make him a bad person, and you really ought to remind him that you’re there for him. He gets dreadfully worrisome sometimes, and he needs reassurance. Goodness know that _I’ll_ never need it; I know that I’m perfect.”

Her certainty made him chuckle, and he said, “Thank you, Daisy. You’ve been a great help.”

“You’re welcome, Harold, it was my pleasure.” After a pause, she added, “Please don’t tell Alexander that I said that. I’m not his biggest fan but I know Hazel is besotted with him and it wouldn’t do for him to think that I’m absolutely cruel about him _all_ the time.”

“Don’t worry, Daisy, I won’t. I’ll let you know how it goes with your brother.”

“Please do.”

When he stepped out of the phone booth, Alfred said, “Taxi?”

“You look frightened,” Amanda chuckled.

He picked up his case from by her feet and pulled a face. “Yeah, Daisy Wells and Felix Mountfitchet scare me, let’s get on.”


	6. time won’t be enough (to make you fall in love with me)

**Chapter 6 — time won’t be enough (to make you fall in love with me)**

**_In which Bertie breaks down_ **

There was a franticness in the air, his beat beating out of his chest in a disconnected way that felt as if it didn’t belong to him. 

“It’s not fair,” he said, voice wrought with tears and cracking as his throat grew tight. “What you did to me, it’s not _fair_ . I’ve cried for you, you know. I’ve dreamt of you, of me, of us together. That moment in the courthouse… it poisoned my first kiss with Harold. You’ve poisoned everything I do, and even if you didn’t intend it… why, you managed it. Sometimes… sometimes I blink, while I’m with Harold, and I see _you_ , and I descend into panic. I’m not as angry as I used to be, and I hate to admit that you helped with that. But now I panic. I can’t breathe, my chest constricts, and I feel like I’m dying. I know what it feels like to almost die, thanks to you. I almost choked to death in panic once. That’s your fault, Stephen, _yours_ . The idea of you, how you cheated me and hurt me, how you lied to my face, forced me to trust a _killer_. You… you’ve done things to me that you can’t possibly understand, and you’ve traumatised me in a way that nobody will ever be able to fix. It’s not fair. You can’t do that to me and expect to hold… hold… hold… hold a civil conversation! A civil conversation with you! I’d love to, I really, really I would. But you’ve hurt me, and you hurt me deeply, and I… I don’t know— Stephen, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust again.”

With that, his voice broke. There was a sharp snap in his chest, and a sob retched from his throat with a choked gasp.

“Bertie! Bertie!” Stephen said, standing from his chair and pressing his hand to the glass between them, staring down at him with wild eyes. “Bertie! Don’t panic, don’t _worry_. You just need to breathe. Remember how I taught you? At Eton?”

“I’ve better people to help,” he gasped out, looking up and meeting Stephen’s gaze. The concern in his eyes filled Bertie with terror, the sort that rose up inside his gut and made him want to reach. “Stay away, Stephen.”

“Let me help, Bertie. Please!” he cried, pushing a hand through the gap in the glass that was made for women to hold the hands of their imprisoned lovers.

With a hysterical shriek of, “NO!”, Bertie scrambled off of his chair and rushed across the room until his hands met the wall. “Don’t come near me!”

“I wish I fucking could!”

The blood pounded in his ears, and panic crept up like arms around him, reaching over his shoulders to choke him dead. His heart hammered in his chest and his hands shook, vision warping beyond recognition as if looking through Harold’s spy glass.

_“Marvellous, isn’t it? You can see the whole of Cambridge,” Harold said in a whisper, lowering his hands from where they were reached around either side of Bertie to help steady the spy glass._

_“Alright,” he replied, leaning back against Harold’s chest. “Impressive little toy you have here. Would be more effective if you weren’t here to provide a rather excellent visual distraction.”_

_Chuckling, Harold replied. “You flatter me. Can I kiss you?”_

_“Others never asked. They just… they always knew what I wanted.”_

_“How many ‘others’ have there been, love?” Harold asked gently, a hand in his hair and a kiss pressed to the back of his neck._

_“Just one. Him.”_

_Harold’s hand touched his cheek, and there was barely space between their lips for a breath of hair. “I am not him, love. May I?”_

_“Of course.”_

He felt himself cry even harder, almost unable to register that the tears dripping down onto his hands were his own. The panic was like a shock dealt to his mind as the tension grew in every part of his body, replaying the panic he had fallen into in his bedroom after the murder, and the way that Stephen held and rocked him and assured that he would be fine. 

In that moment of panic, he understood the desperate, the pained, the hurting, the drink people took too, the cigarettes people lit, and what people smoked in pipes. He would have done anything, anything at all, to bring calm to the raging storm in his mind. 

* * *

“Hurry up,” Alfred snapped, thumping the back of the driver’s chair. 

“ _Alfred_ ,” Amanda hissed, though the driver did speed up at his instruction. In response, Alfred winked at her and she reached over to slap his arm. “Infuriating boy.”

“You two, shut up,” Harold said, face drawn into carefully-structured impassiveness. “Ah, here it is. Thank you, sir.”

He pushed open the door and started towards the prison, Amanda and Alfred hurrying along behind him. “Harold, look—“ was all Amanda managed before his arm was seized by an officer.

“What is your business here? You can’t just waltz in!”

“Please release me, good sir.”

With a new wave of confidence, Harold dug his hand into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a badge. When he had been in Paris with his brother, the summer of the Fallingford Trial, his brother had received a British DI badge from the French police department as a thanks for his services in a case. Given that he and Alexander already had matching badges from their case in London, the badge had been gifted to Harold.

_“As a thank you for taking me to Paris,” George said, holding up the badge between two fingers and dissing an eyebrow to let him know that refusal was option two, which was no option at all. “And let it serve as a reminder to not fall for any more charming jewellers that offer you wine.”_

“I believe that I’m carrying your badge for you,” he said to Alfred, raising his eyebrow as he handed the silver badge to his friend.

Stepping forward, Alfred took the stage. “I’m a Detective Inspector,” he said in tones as important as George Mukherjee put on when standing up to police. “I’ve been informed by Cambridge University that Bertie Wells is paying a visit to Stephen Bampton.”

“Yes,” said the guard at the door. “That’s correct.”

Reaching into the pocket of his coat, Harold put away the badge and held up the diary that he had flicked from Bertie’s room that morning. “This diary gives the police reason to believe that leaving Wells and Bampton alone is not a smart idea.”

Cottoning on to the idea, Amanda added, “Wells is… to put it lightly, affected badly by the very idea of his traitorous best friend. I doubt that he’ll fare better when they’re in the same room.”

“I’d thank you to let me past,” Alfred said, standing tall with his chest puffed out, looking the guard directly in the eye.

“And who are these… people with you?”

Harold saw the eyes stall on him, saw the flicker in the man’s eyes, saw the consideration before he was deemed worthy of the label ‘a person’. 

“Two companions of Wells, I thought it wise to bring them.” Raising an eyebrow, he said, “Please, gentleman, may I?”

* * *

“Bampton is meeting with him in here,” a guard said, and Amanda leant forward, one hand on the door as she listened.

“Bertie! BERTIE!” yelled someone inside the room.

“Alfred!” she hissed, nodding for him to listen.

He did so, and his face paled dramatically. “All guards away, if you please. I’ll call you back when necessary.”

Once all the guards had left, Alfred struggled with the key that he had been given, eventually unlocking the heavy metal door and pushing it open. Inside the room, Bertie was pressed up into the corner, arms around his knees with his breath coming in gaps fitted between sobs. 

“Bertie!” Harold yelled, darting forward and dropping to his knees heavily in front of him, ignoring the redhead staring on the other side of the glass. “Bertie! Bertie! Bertie, my love, can you hear me? I’m right here. You’re safe. Nothing can hurt you anymore.”

Bertie gasped and balled his hands into fists. “No…”

Bringing up his hand to settle on Bertie’s shoulder, he rubbed back and forth as he said, “I’ve got you.”


	7. it gets cold in the winter sometimes

**Chapter 7 — it gets cold in the winter sometimes**

**_In which Harold talks some sense in Bertie_ ** **.**

“I’ve got you, Bertie,” Harold whispered, feeling the cold bite of the prison chill worm through the material of his tailored trousers. One hand was on Bertie’s shoulder, the other hovering by his cheek. “Here, remember what you practised, with Amanda? Breathe in, go on…”

Underneath his hand on his shoulder, he felt Bertie take in a deliberate breath, stuttered with a sob that leapt out in the middle of his attempted recovery. “I… I’m sorry. I’m trying,” he managed to gasp out, bowing his face into Harold’s hand. 

“I know. That’s enough,” he said, trying to swallow the racing panic that was threatening to bubble out of his mouth because he feared, feared most horribly, Bertie not being able to calm himself down. “It’ll always be enough.”

“I’m sorry!” he said again, sounding more hysterical with each repetition.

“I know, I know, shhh,” he said, glancing to his left to see Stephen staring, staring, staring through the glass with his fingers pressed against it, leaving fingerprints staining the pane in a misty haze. “Now try again, in and out. That’s it, you’ve got it.”

A series of hitching gasps and sobs followed, and any progress was lost to his shallow and uneven breaths. “I… I… I told him everything, Harold. I… I told him that he’s hurt me, about the panicking, about— about _us_. I had to tell him that I… I have it all, I have it all again. Despite… despite… despite what he took from me, I have it all. I had to tell him, I just, I needed him to know.”

“I know, it’s okay, you’re fine, I’m not angry. You’re the one who should be, the fact that you even have to say that to someone,” he said, feeling Bertie’s breath catch under his hand as his shoulders shook and hearing the hiccups that came with each failed breath. “Here, look up, look at me. Don’t think of him. I’m right here; he’s blocked on the other side of a glass pane. He can’t get to you, remember?”

Ever-so-slightly, Bertie raised his head from where it was buried in his sleeves, resting on folded forearms. His face was flushed red with the force of his tears, up to the tips of his ears. His eyes were rimmed with red and tears were dripping down his already soaked cheeks. His hair was soaked with sweat, and the mixture of tears and sweat collected against Harold’s fingers as he cupped his cheek. Careful not to make it obvious, Harold moved to put himself between Bertie and where Stephen was peering through the glass, shifting his hand up his face to guard his eyes against the redhead who looked as wild as a caged animal at a zoo.

“There you are.” Harold bowed his head closer to Bertie and kissed his curls, automatically ducking down to conceal the gesture from non-existent watchful eyes. “Try again? _Good_ , and again.”

It was an effort, one that felt like suffocating, but he managed to heave in breath after breath, feeling like Harold was pulling each one from his chest. “Well _done,_ you’re doing good.”

“Don’t patronise me,” he said, voice scratchy and wet with tears. “You can’t.”

With a roll of his eyes, Harold said, “I wish I was able to, it would make this a lot easier. I could never tell you anything but the absolute truth.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left,” he said, a hitch in his voice and tears streaming down his cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. You’re your own person, Bertie. I don’t dictate what you do, dear, you make your own choices. Don’t get me wrong, I think you’re a fucking idiot for coming up to London, but I won’t hold it against you,” he assured him, stroking his thumb across his cheek. “We all make stupid choices.” Turning around, he said, “Handkerchief?”

Amanda offered hers out in a hurry, and Harold pressed it into Bertie’s hands. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“Don’t mention it,” he said, nodding to Amanda. “Hey, Amanda?”

With a nod, she rushed over to take Harold’s place. “Hey, Bertie.”

“Manda,” he mumbled, wiping his eyes and smiling a watery smile. 

“Oh, thank god, you’re okay,” she breathed, reaching to take his hand and squeezing it in both of her own. “You’re going to be alright, Bertie. I promise. He can’t get you, not if you don’t want him to come near you ever again.”

With a gasp, he tightened his grip on her hand. “I think I can stand.”

Holding out her hands, she allowed him to haul himself to his feet before wrapping his arms around her, as tight as he could without feeling as though he was about to break her. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” she echoed, smiling against his shoulder and trying desperately not to enjoy the feeling of his hand against the small of his back.

They turned to see Harold staring through the glass, guarded against the boy now slumped back in his chair with his head in his hands, yanking on copper curls with one hand. “I pity you,” he said, and he was surprised to find that his voice didn’t shake. “You had something — someone — more precious than anything, and you threw that away.”

Raising an eyebrow at Harold, though Bertie couldn’t tell if it was a judgment or not, Alfred made his way to Bertie and wrapped an arm around his shoulders to steady him. “Come on, Wells. Two days in London of rush-tickets and museums and tourism await us.”

“It isn’t tourism for me!” Amanda said in offence, accompanied by a nod of agreement from Amanda. “I’m _from_ London!”

A choked sob came from the other side of the glass, and Bertie turned to stare, eyes wide as he took in the sight of Stephen sobbing into his hands. He waited for a stab of pity to hit him, one that didn’t come. Instead, all he saw was a bad choice held inside a clenched fist, something he wanted to forget drowning in dark eyes, and regret caught inside firey curls.

“Goodbye, Stephen.”


	8. you'll be fine

**Chapter 8 — you’ll be fine**

**_In which they go back to a hotel._ **

“Excuse me, are there any spare rooms?”

Bertie blinked himself back into the world of the living, feeling Alfred’s arm firm around his shoulders and Amanda’s presence hovering at his side, ready to steady him in the event of a fall. Every part of his body felt flushed of energy, utterly empty with aches curling down his limbs and dripping off the tips of his fingers with a weight that threatened to pull him down. 

“Afraid not, sir, but I can take a name and let you know when there’s a vacancy,” said the woman behind the desk, looking through her papers busily and pushing her glasses up her nose.

With an irritable sigh, he said, “There’s not much point, really, but if you must, my name is Mukherjee. My father’s the renowned doctor?”

Blinking in surprise, the women said, “Why, sir, there’s already a booking made for you. Two bookings under the names of Price and Cheng made for one Harold Mukherjee.”

“Ah,” he said, numbed with the surprise of an impossible booking that he didn’t remember making. “Who were they made by?”

“A Mr Mountfitchet?” she said, thumbing through the papers and stilling at the name in question. “He called ahead hours ago, asking for rooms beside one Mr Wells.”

A surprised laugh bubbled from his throat, and he said, “Oh! Bertie, your uncle is a marvel of a man. Thank you, Miss, I’m sorry for the trouble.”

“It’s no problem, Mr Mukherjee, where will you be staying?” she asked with a curious and slightly concerned look.

Harold spent five seconds considering who he wanted to throw under the bus with Amanda before deciding that it would be himself, as that was the implication that she would resent the least (that wouldn’t shoot into the newspapers with articles about Bertie’s love life). “Oh, I’ll be taking Amanda Price’s room with her. Thank you for dealing with this.”

“It’s not a problem, Mr Mukherjee.”

* * *

“What  _ does _ your uncle do, Bertie?” Amanda asked, her hand on his arm and looking up into his eyes.

“Something important enough to get him connections, I’d wager,” Alfred said with scorn in his tone. “I’ve no idea what it could be.”

In curt and sarcastic tones, Harold said, “Professional assassin,” and moved ahead of the three of them to unlock the door to Bertie’s room.

“Amanda,” Alfred said. “I’ve several books with me, if you’d like to read them with me in my room.”

“Sounds splendid,” she replied, taking his arm and jokingly winking at him before turning to Harold. “Keep Bertie safe, okay?”

“I’d never do anything else.”

* * *

In Bertie’s hotel room, a hush fell over them. Bertie looked as if he was about to shatter, and Harold felt just as exhausted. Despite having heard about Stephen and seen photos of him — Bertie kept one tucked inside a well-thumbed poetry book that every schoolboy ever had studied and hated, pressed against a page with the corner torn out, and Harold had never asked, knowing that he would get no answer — he had not been prepared to see the killer in the flesh. Even though he had seen the thin and freckled face in photos and heard about it in a thousand descriptions, nothing could capture the fact that Harold couldn’t see a cold-blooded killer. He had always assumed that there would be murder in his eyes and bitterness in his tone, but instead he saw a scared boy that had killed, and the fact that he could still see the boy hidden inside Stephen’s face terrified him.

He could almost see why Stephen did it, and he never thought that he would be able to sympathise with a killer.

“Bertie, dear,” he said, moving away from where he was sitting on the bed to stand beside him at the window. “I’m here.”

“I know.”

There was an aching pause, a gulf in the inch between them that threatened to push them apart, one that was impossible to reach across. “You did a brave thing.”

“I did a cowardly thing.”

Shaking his head, Harold swallowed and blinked back tears, and spoke in a tight voice. “No. Bertie, no. You’re… no. You’re one of the bravest people I’ve ever met. You said  _ goodbye  _ to him, dear. That’s one of the bravest things that you could have done.”

“What if I go back? There’s a magnetic pull to him, Harold, a need to make it right with him. What if I go back?”

Knowing that he could never convince Bertie out of this mindset, he said, “Then I’ll chase you. Every damn time, Bertie, I’ll chase after you. I’ll come to London and I’ll lead you out of his cell, and I’ll calm you down and tell you that I love you.”

“Why?” he asked and turned to face Harold for the first time. There was a wide, almost manic look in his eyes, and Harold reached up to touch his cheek.

“Because I signed up for this, Bertie.”

Bertie shook his head, pulling away and looking back out the window. “Nobody could sign up for me.”

With a smile, he said, “May as well call me Odysseus, then.”

“You’re insufferable,” Bertie said, reaching out to touch his hand, interlocking their fingers between them. “That was an obvious joke.”

“Someone’s paying attention to their history lectures,” he teased, rewarded with a slight smile

Bertie stared at the sky for a moment longer, feeling the press of Harold’s fingers against his palm. “I loved a killer.”

“You loved a boy, Bertie,” he said, looking at the resolute features of his boyfriend staring out of the window, eyes hard and a few solitary tears rolling doing his cheeks. “You told me so. You loved a boy who laughed and learnt and studied and sang, who kissed you in dark corners and marked his name on each one of your firsts. And then he killed someone. You didn’t love a killer, Bertie. A boy that you loved became a killer.”

“I trusted him to give me a stick-and-poke tattoo, when we were fourteen.”

He nodded, though shocked. “The black marks on your shoulder.”

“That’s right. I’m glad it came out in the wash.”

“George told me something interesting in a letter the other day,” he said, offering up a topic change so sharp that Bertie looked at him in astonishment. “Did you know that the human body, all the cells in it, are replaced every seven years? In six years, you’ll be a person that Stephen Bampton never touched.”

Swallowing hard, Bertie said, “I’d like that. I don’t mind the memories of him, but I hate the fact that he... he kissed me, in the same places that you have. Held the same hand, whispered in the same ear.”

“I’ll be here with you in six years, Bertie. He won’t,” he assured, squeezing his hand. “You know that I’ll fight for you, right?”

He smiled a smile void of happiness. “It’s a losing battle, love. I’ve been losing it for nineteen years.”

“I’ll lose with you, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this story! It has been quite the journey, and Bella has been wonderful throughout it all with their feedback. Please leave any comments about what you thought of the story overall, so I can see your wonderful and brilliant feedback.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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